Trending: ‘protean’

Protean swam to the top of our lookups on June 26th, 2020, after Dr. Anthony Fauci used the word to describe the coronavirus.

Dr. Fauci says that in decades of working with infectious diseases, "I have never seen anything that is so protean in its ability to make people sick or not" as coronavirus https://t.co/Nj065CIsxp pic.twitter.com/DgcrRCbiTF

— CBS News (@CBSNews) June 26, 2020

We define protean in two ways: “displaying great diversity or variety” and “of or resembling Proteus in having a varied nature or ability to assume different forms” (Proteus was a Greek sea god capable of assuming different forms). The word has been used in such manner since the end of the 16th century.

In her high deedes, through euery thing obscure
To full perfection; not the weake disioint
Of female humors; nor the Protean rages
Of pied fac'd fashion, that doth shrink and swell,
Working poore men like waxen images
And makes them apish strangers where they dwell
— Ovids banquet of sence (trans.), 1595